At the end of 2020, we drove on the I-90W highway to Niagara Falls to celebrate 2021 New Year Eve. It was during a rainstorm in the dark, and as a passenger I thought we were going downhill.

I asked my daughter, the driver: “Are we going downhill now?”

My daughter replied: “No, we are not going downhill.”

I trusted my visual sense and said: “I saw we are going downhill now.”

My daughter who was concentrating on driving in the dark rainstorm didn’t reply to me immediately. After a few seconds, she said: “Mommy, If I don’t push the gas, the car slows down. If we were going downhill, the car would not slow down while not pushing the gas. Therefore we are not going downhill.”

This conversation solved one of my long-time mysteries: as a passenger riding in the dark, I often felt I was going downhill, but I never got an agreement or explanation until now.

While traveling with a driver who is good at driving and speaking, passengers can gain joy from both the sceneries and the knowledge of the driver in a relaxing pleasant way.

While traveling with my daughter who is good at driving and speaking, I, the mother and the only passenger, enjoyed this unspeakable pleasure, because of my daughter’s ability to explain things clearly based on her own logic while driving a car. This solved a long-standing mystery for me instantly.

I remembered last week I saw a school security guard was good at using language to convince a group of very excited young people who were snowboarding on a handrail to stop playing without any conflicts.

I also remembered a story about how important speaking skills were in the workplace in 1996, while I was a software engineer working on AWIPS (Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System).

“AWIPS is a complex network of hardware and software systems that ingests and integrates meteorological, hydrological, satellite, and radar data in realtime; it also processes and distributes the data to 135 Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) and River Forecast Centers (RFCs) nationwide. Weather forecasters utilize the capabilities of AWIPS to make increasingly accurate weather, water, and climate predictions, and to dispense rapid, highly reliable warnings and advisories.”

1996, my first job as a software engineer was at PRC in West Virginia, I was working on developing the backend workstation system for AWIPS.

In 1996, AWIPS had five big software systems: satellite and radar communication system, database systems, meteorological and hydrological system, graphical user interface system, and backend workstation system. Each system had its own dedicated development team. At that time AWIPS had lots of very strong and sharp software system engineers, a few of them were very tall and very strong.

I attended a few cross systems design sessions, where lead architects presented designs of their systems and discussed ways to integrate all the systems. During discussions, I saw more than once that some very tall architect would stand up and shout: “You stole words from my mouth.” Those incidents led to me realizing the importance of speaking clearly and accurately in design discussions. The blame of “You stole words from my mouth.” is still in my memory.

At the beginning of 2021, the story about my daughter, a school security guard, and software engineers of 25 years ago came together, letting me realize the power of spoken words. On the highway of speech communication, may I not overpass others, nor crash myself. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to practice and improve my ability to communicate accurately, share immediately, and response pertinently.

Little Episodes

12-30-2020， Before the rainstorm and the night: snow piled on the side of I-90 highway, sunset on the edge of the sky.

AWIPS on wikipedia:

Merdith Meyers, my close friend and coworker at PRC, who was born 1970s and came from Florida, once described one of the new software engineer to me: “Jing, we just hied a new guy, he has Alan’s width (Alan was chubby) and Gordon’s height (Gordon was super tall), he is David.”

我很喜欢市立玫瑰花园，平时也常来赏花，因为这里赏花免费。花园里种有玫瑰花180多种，花姿花色花香各异，很迷人。每年的五月初是赏花的最好时间。看着满园盛开的玫瑰花，我想起了Karen，一九九六年我在美东西维州的一位同事。一晃二十年过去了，我也到了她的年龄了。

我认识Karen时她大概50岁，我们在同一个小组工作，上班时邻座，所以我们有频繁的近距离接触。

Karen属于胖大体型，走动时易出汗。出汗后，她常给自己喷一点香水；她会一边喷一边说：“气味真好！”可是，我不习惯闻她的汗水和香水混合的气味。

Karen不开车，每天坐公交车上下班。她没有自己的房子，租的不是公寓而是家庭的空休房。她说这样租金会便宜一些，因为一般不用另外再交水电费。认识她之初，从她的举止打扮和闲聊话题，我觉得她来自一个没有爱的贫穷家庭。

有一天，Karen拿了一幅油画到办公室来，她说：“这是我刚领回来的参赛得了奖的作品。”几个同事看了画后都称赞她画得好。她说：“我多年没有动画笔了，画得不够流畅。参赛是要有主题的画，所以我画了一幅士兵头像。”一九九六年，好像是美国军队战胜归来的时间段，我还记得那幅画上的士兵表情很严肃。Karen写得一手好字，公司一位同事结婚，特意请Karen写了好多请柬。


慢慢的，我们知道她来自一个富裕的工程师家庭，小时候弹琴画画都训练有素。但她绝口不谈其他关于她的事。从她身上我感觉到小时候的训练有素未必能保证一生的安康。


有一次因为活太多我们下班比平常晚，我问Karen：“要不要我送你回家？”她爽快的回答了。我和她一起先去托儿所接上我女儿，然后我们再送她到她住处。到达她住处后，Karen下车时特意叫我们等一等，说她有东西要送我女儿。我坐在车上看着她摇摇摆摆费力地走回家，我心里很难过。过了一会儿她手上拿着两朵非常漂亮的玫瑰花笑盈盈的出来了。她说这玫瑰花是房东种的，她特意摘来送我女儿，女儿见到玫瑰花好开心！那是女儿才3岁多，我们住在公寓里没有花园。美国东部西维州的冬天很冷，玫瑰在冬天易被冻伤，那里的住家区很少见到玫瑰花。


现在回想起这送玫瑰花的事，我更觉得Karen很有情调：她拖着疲劳的身体去花园里为一个3岁的小姑娘摘玫瑰花，可歌可泣。


玫瑰花和50岁的女人，一段留住了的记忆。

原文发表于：2016-06-03